Ready to Subscribe to the Local Print Newspaper Again

I was at my local farmer’s market this weekend and I saw a guy there advertising a year’s worth of Sunday newspapers (the SF Chronicle) for about $30. I almost signed up and probably will.

I get the print Sunday NY Times (to access to the digital edition) and to support the publication. But I discontinued my local newspaper subscription several years ago.

Despite what I would call my “facility with online media” I feel like I’m missing out on things, especially in the realm of local events. Yes, there are a whole bunch of local events sites. But I forget to check them and generally their user experiences aren’t great.

It’s amazing that nobody online (or in mobile) has “solved” the local events problem.

The newspaper was historically the central repository for all that was happening (and would be happening in the near future) in the local area. Now I effectively have to rely on direct mail and pure serendipity to learn about what’s going on in and around the SF Bay Area.

I’m not going to search because I wouldn’t know what to search for most of the time — it’s a “local discovery problem.” And I’m not going to follow scores of venue sites on Twitter or something like that. Facebook could certainly fill the vacuum but the site would need to “step it up” in order to do so.

Amazingly I’m going to resubscribe to the local print newspaper because local online media and digital media more broadly have failed it comes to alerting me about things to do and events coming up in my area.

I challenge you to disagree with me and point to a site online that’s really done a great job with local events (the test of that is you use it weekly).

15 Responses to “Ready to Subscribe to the Local Print Newspaper Again”

I think Patch.com does a decent job with local, but I agree I don’t think anything has really replaced local newspapers. I do not use it weekly. It’s also not available in every city, so it’s not currently an option for some.

I capture and consume all my news (local and otherwise) via feeds, Google+ and Twitter, depending on the device. In terms of local events, I have to say that Patch has been so disappointing lately that I rarely find myself reading it; little/no content, and once and awhile some lame post about a hyper-local event, but it’s hit or miss. As much as I hate to admit it, LoHud.com (Gannett digital) does a much better job with local events/stories, and they’ve recently gone to a partial paywall – so I may soon pay (which I hate to do since their recent screw-up in publishing legal gun owner’s addresses). Other sources? Facebook a bit I guess, direct mail for sure. What else is there?

I’m with you Greg… I am basically disconnected from my city (Vancouver) without a quick flip through our two dailies. I might just re-subscribe as well. To keep up with events I find myself using Ticketmaster as about the only form of local discovery of something interesting but then I miss the stuff that’s not a paid event.. besides Ticketmaster and the daily newspaper, I end up clueless on what’s going on in my fine city.

I applaud all of you for looking for a website but the fact of the matter is that I like newspapers, local newspapers, NY Times, Wall Street Journal. I like the seredipity of seeing an article that I did not particularly look for but which catches my eye. Seeing so many announcements/articles on a page gives you a chance to read about a new place or new happening without specifically looking for it.

I run an events discovery blog in San Francisco http://sf.funcheap.com – with a handpicked list of free and affordable things to do like street fairs & festivals, free movie nights, robot dance parties, etc…

Rather than scraping sites and trying to have a gigantic list of every event under the sun and forcing people to search and sort, we look over a ton of email lists, facebook pages, twitter feeds, meetup groups and venue sites to curate our listings to highlight our favorites and anything that we think is really unique.

I’d love to get your feedback about Funcheap and any areas of improvement so I can make it an even better resource.

Great topic and points. Events are getting a lot more attention these days, for good reason. At SpinGo, we partner with media companies, like your local newspaper, to power their events calendar, mobile app, and the print listings. We feel we have the most complete solution, with a lot more to come. Check us out on a partner site like http://www.utsandiego.com/news/entertainment/things-to-do/#/grid, or browse around SpinGo.com and let me know what you think.